It's All Fine
by thelemonadebandit
Summary: A collection of short scenes detailing the childhood of John and Harry Watson through the perspective of Harry. A companion piece to "I'll Be Mother" but can be read alone.
1. Prologue

_Author's Note: This can be read as a stand-alone or as a companion piece to my earlier fic "I'll Be Mother," about the childhood of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. This piece is simply a series of short scenes detailing the lives of Harry and John Watson through the perspective of Harry, and will consist of eighteen chapters covering the first eighteen years of John's life. _

John Watson was born in the turbulent wake of a dead soldier. A father, a war hero, who was meant to be home in time to see the birth of his second child, his first son. But he never made it back.

Harriet was four years old at the time. She understood very little and was not even present at the hospital until it was time to take her new brother home. She had spent the past two months surrounded by people wearing black and strangers giving her hugs and grown-ups crying and an entire existence filled with visits from obscure relatives and meals that were always casserole made by someone other than Mum. She'd been sent to see a man a few times who talked to her about Dad and how she was feeling and asked her to draw pictures about it. Sometimes she cried about Dad, but then again, she didn't fully understand how long "never" was going to last.

When she did finally see the baby, she was enthralled with him. She wanted to inspect his tiny fingers and toes, touch the soft little hairs on the top of his head, hold him on her lap, peek at the funny little toothless gums behind his lips. John was Dad's name, so it followed, somehow, in her mind, that the Dad who had gone away forever was being replaced by this new John, this little crying bundle of blankets and soft skin.

"When will he learn to walk?" she asked eagerly, as Mum held her up over the edge of the crib so she could peer down at him. "When will he talk? When can he play game with me?"

"He's only a baby now, Harriet. He'll have to get much bigger before he's strong enough and smart enough to do all that."

"Feed him extra milk," the toddler suggested, and Mum smiled. It was a sad smile, like all of the smiles these days. Then something enormous occurred to Harriet and she gasped.

"Mum!" she cried, distraught and wriggling out of her mother's grasp. "Who's gonna teach him about catching frogs and building castles and all the places of the map!"

Mum gulped and caught a tear at the corner of her eye before it dripped down her cheek.

"I don't know, sweetie," she said. "Dad's not coming back. I guess someone else will have to do it."

Harriet did not feel that she was good enough at catching frogs and building castles and knowing all the places of the map, at least not good enough to teach Baby John when he got big enough to learn. And she didn't think Mum knew how. So that night, laying in her bed with the zoo animal sheets, she cried, because the man who helped her draw pictures said it was okay to cry, and then she got up and tip-toed into John's room and promised she would learn to be better at all those things so by the time he got big enough she could teach him.

Frog-catching, after all, was important to know.


	2. Year 1

Harriet got in the habit of asking when Dad was coming home. At first it was an honest question. A five-year-old who has only had a few months since her father's death on a battlefield far away, that kind of question. A five-year-old who does not understand a concept of death or time sort of question.

But then it became more of a wish. The way that the children in Peter Pan chant over and over, "I do believe in fairies" until the fairy comes back to life. Harriet knew the answer wouldn't change, as the months went by she knew it more and more, but kept wishing and hoping that maybe _this time_, if she thought very hard, if she stood in the exact right spot and said it at the right time and crossed her fingers a certain way, then the answer would be different.

It didn't change. Everything else did.

Baby John did, fast and frequently. First he was grabbing things, like Harriet's little finger. He could babble and make spit bubbles. Then he could babble things that actually sounded like words, and then he could roll over, sit up, crawl. Harriet spoke to him frequently. She told him stories that she made up, about princesses and knights, in which frequently the princesses were also knights. She told him about the rules of the house and about the things Dad used to play and about her friend Lucy down the street. She told him where all of his toys came from and then, because he was too small to be picky about his toys, she would take the good ones and play with them herself while he sat beside her and gnawed on a rattle or a teddy bear. John had better toys than Harriet – she used to like her dolls, but those were boring compared to a real-live baby, and she would rather steal John's dump trucks.

Mum also changed. Well, she didn't change too much, it was more her presence that changed. Namely the lack of it. For a while everything was fine and then suddenly she had to go back to work, lots of work, because Dad wasn't there anymore, and suddenly Harriet and John had to go stay with Gram during the day, and there were an awful lot of rules at Gram's house, and it smelled like old people, and there were only three movies to watch, and even though John wasn't the kind of baby who cried a lot, Harriet felt certain that he didn't like it at Gram's house, either.

"Why do we have to go there?" she asked Mum one evening at dinner.

"You know why. I've told you why. Mum has to go to work."

"You didn't work before."

"Dad worked before, but Dad's not here now. So now I have to." Mum got up and brought her dishes to the sink with a tired look on her face, and Harriet scowled.

"But Gram doesn't play with us, she doesn't have peanut butter for sandwiches and she doesn't have any good movies—"

"Harriet," Mum said, in the almost-about-to-be-in-trouble voice, and John banged his little plastic spoon against his high chair and screeched happily, splattering apple sauce everywhere.

"…she listens to the yucky radio with no music all day and we can't go in the living room or in the bedrooms and she yelled at me—"

"Harriet."

"…I was just playing with John and trying to teach him about the game Dad used to play about hunting aliens cuz nobody ever plays with me anymore and I thought John could—"

"Harriet, you need to stop now, you're not getting out of—"

"…she yelled at me and she always yells and it's not my fault—"

"_Harriet!_" Mum slammed down the pot she was washing and it made a loud clattering sound against the sink and John looked up with big wide eyes and looked around and started crying. The room was so quiet except for John's big baby mouth wailing and wailing. Mum closed her eyes and sighed and Harriet blinked and felt a funny tickle in her throat because Mum never yelled at her.

"I'm sorry," said Mum. "I'm sorry. I just… your Dad is gone and I… I have to work, I have to work a lot, darling, I'm sorry…"

Harriet sat there frozen in her seat and felt hot tears fall down her face. She didn't like Mum working and not having time to play with her. She didn't like Mum yelling at her, Mum wasn't supposed to yell. She didn't like staying over at Gram's house during the day and she didn't like Gram much at all. She didn't like the way Baby John kept on crying and she didn't like that Dad was not coming back no matter how many times she asked.

"No, darling, come here," said Mum, but Harriet didn't move, and she didn't have to because Mum came to her, and picked her up out of her seat, and held her tight with both arms and kissed her on her head. And John was still crying, so Mum went and got him out of his highchair and she held them, both of them, one in each arm while they were crying.

Harriet liked the warm feeling of her Mum around her and Baby John beside her, his wailing subsiding, his little applesauce-covered fingers grasping at her hair.


End file.
